No less than 860 journalists were detained, imprisoned, or executed by the Iranian government during the period between 1979 and 2009. This happened during the Islamic Revolution period and it continued for 30 years. This bit of information was available from some documents which were leaked to a media monitoring group Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF).

During a news conference in Paris which was attended by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, receiver of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, RSF stated that whistleblowers had handed down 1.7 million records uncovering judicial proceedings against a bunch of citizens, which includes minorities, journalists, and government opponents.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire stated that the group had spent months cross-verifying the records with their own recorded cases and those of other NGOs, and had concluded that hundreds of journalists had been aimed by the state. RSF also stated that the leaked files are a record of all the arrests, executions, and imprisonments that were conducted by the Iranian authorities for thirty years in the Tehran area.

RSF published the report to correspond with the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to come to power.

Deloire stated that his organization would introduce the file to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights with the longing that further steps could be taken to hold Iran responsible for the actions.

Last month, Amnesty International published a report charging the Iranian authorities of suppression on dispute during 2018 with over 7,000 people being arrested; among them most were students, environmental campaigners, journalists, and lawyers.

RSF in their investigation confirmed that at least four journalists were killed, which includes, Simon Farzami, a Swiss-Iranian of Jewish origin who was bureau chief of French news agency when he was detained in 1980. Apart from the journalists who were jailed or brought together, RSF stated that the leaked documents also revealed that since 1980s around 61,900 political prisoners had been held and among them over 500 of them were having the age group of 15-18 years.

The files offered some evidence of a massacre which took place in 1988 and during which around 4000 political prisoners were beheaded on the orders of Khomeini between July and September.